


The Visitors

by thegirlwiththemouseyhair



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Fish out of Water, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-19
Updated: 2014-10-19
Packaged: 2018-02-21 18:05:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2477513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirlwiththemouseyhair/pseuds/thegirlwiththemouseyhair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thomas and Philip, Duke of Crowborough, travel from London in 1911 to London in 2011, and the history books show that they don't return so that must mean they succeed in the future - mustn't it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Visitors

**Author's Note:**

  * For [daredevilmoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/daredevilmoon/gifts).



> Many, many thanks to ALittleWhos-This (as usual!) for inspiring and nurturing this idea, and being the Crowbarrow Queen and my Crowbarrow consultant. <3 Thomas absolutely deserves to time travel to the future and to a place where queer sexualities are more accepted, and the idea of Philip as a fish out of water (and Thomas too, for that matter) was just too good to resist. The names Craig and Sally are nods to Craig in The Lodger episode of Doctor Who and Sally in Blink. This fic has been partly fuelled by a lot of listening to the excellent Doctor Who soundtracks composed by Murray Gold.

The future – present now, Thomas supposed – was nice, at least in some ways. For one thing, no one minded if two men shacked up together in a flat, where anyone could see that they were lovers. Apparently it had been made legal to be like them decades before, in 1967. The dates made Thomas smile. If they hadn’t fallen through to the future, he would have been an old man of seventy-seven in 1967, and Philip would have been seventy-nine. They’d have had to live to be over a hundred and twenty to see the year 2011.

“I think we’ll do very nicely,” Thomas had said, gleefully turning to Philip. Philip looked rather dazed, which was really how Thomas felt, but smiled at Thomas and took his hand in front of the young couple, Craig and Sally, showing them the flat. Craig worked for some company neither of them had heard of and that clearly didn’t exist a hundred years before. He would have to spend six months in America, in the state of California, selling things, which was why he needed someone else to take the flat over as soon as possible.

Philip had just enough money to rent the place. Thomas knew this, and nodded at him behind Craig and Sally’s heads. Still Philip wouldn’t commit. Thomas wanted to roll his eyes. _We’ll need a place to live if we’re staying in the future; this one’s as good as any…_

“We’ll throw in everything,” Craig said. “I don’t know why no one’s taken the flat, but the contract came up very suddenly, and we’re a bit down to the wire, so I don’t mind sweetening the deal.”

Sally took Craig’s hand. They, too, must be living in sin together. At least Thomas thought so: neither was wearing a wedding ring, unless people stopped using wedding rings in a hundred years.

“We’ll pay for your Internet and the other utilities,” Sally said. “Really, you two won’t do better.”

Thomas and Philip looked at one another. He didn’t know what any of that meant and, judging by the way Philip furrowed his brow while continuing to smile blankly, neither did Philip.

“It’s a perfect place for two people,” Sally added. “And you look like such a nice couple.”

“Why, thank you,” Philip said. Thomas beamed at their hosts. How different this future was from the place and time they had just left. Craig and Sally seemed a bit silly, a bit foolish (though they may just have been acting pleasant to rent their flat), but they couldn’t be all bad if they were open-minded about men like Thomas and Philip.

“Do you want some tea or crisps or something?” Sally asked, indicating the table.

“Thank you,” Philip said. They sat down together. Thomas elbowed Philip. Philip glared at him, a knowing look in his eye, before whispering, “ _All right,_ _I’ll_ _sign_.”

 *

The rent was a steal, but Craig and Sally left them only a limited supply of food and other necessities. The morning after they moved in, Thomas woke to find Philip standing at the refrigerator and staring into it with a deep frown on his face.

“Morning,” Thomas said.

Philip turned round and smiled. His pupils widened just looking at Thomas. Thomas felt his face go warm. It was romantic in its way – going off on a great adventure with a Duke who just might love him, and where they could be together without fear.

“Come here,” Philip said. Thomas obliged. Philip let go of the refrigerator door, let it fall shut, and pulled Thomas into an embrace. They kissed in the narrow kitchen. Thomas grinned beneath Philip’s mouth and flicked his tongue over Philip’s lips, only for the other man to shake his head gently, nuzzling Thomas’s cheek as he did. He pulled away, but kept his arm tight around Thomas’s waist.

“Wait,” he said. There was a tightness in his voice that Thomas recognized well, “I’m a little worried about some of the – practicalities. You see, while it’s nice not to risk arrest for being together, it would be much _less_ nice to starve.”

Thomas looked around him. There was half a loaf of bread on the tiny counter, a container of what Thomas assumed must be butter in the refrigerator, beside a strangely wrapped pack of sausages, and a kettle on the stove. Philip had set out two mugs of tea, as well, so there must be tea somewhere in the flat. That was, however, all that he could see.

“Well, I don’t suppose we’ll _starve_ ,” Thomas reassured him. “There must be stores and grocers in the year 2011.”

Philip bit his lip. “It’s more an issue of money. I know it’s vulgar to talk about, and I’m really sorry, but you know how I was fixed a hundred years ago, and money seems to take you _less_ far today.”

Thomas blinked. He was still rather tired; it was early to confront practical problems like that. Then he realized what Philip was trying to say and laughed.

“You mean we’ll both have to get jobs somewhere?” he asked. He didn’t know what people _did_ in 2011, but he imagined Philip carrying a tray to serve the family of some new, twenty-first century Duke, and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Philip must have imagined some similar indignity. He furrowed his brow very deeply and shook his head.

“I was thinking you’ve got skills that should allow you to find a place to work right away,” he explained. “There must always be people in service – mustn’t there? And you might not have to do it for long, but I should think you could find something fast.”

Thomas stopped laughing. “Why should I be the only working?”

“I don’t mean that,” Philip said. “Look, I made tea for us, didn’t I? That was work, and I got up before you did to do it. But I think you should find a job as soon as possible so we _don’t_ starve, while I will go to the library and do some research. I need to see if the Crowborough title is still worth anything in this century.”

Thomas hoped his scowl wouldn’t be too obvious, but he was wrong. Philip saw him and flushed.

“I’m not shirking,” he insisted. “But for all we know, I can impersonate my own great-grandson or grandnephew or something, and inherit a comfortable place.”

“You just said you didn’t even have money a hundred years ago,” Thomas pointed out.

Philip sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe I fixed it, or someone did. I – I have to try, anyway. Don’t you see?”

Thomas supposed he did. _Run off into the future with a handsome, rich duke who might discover he_ actually _can afford for us to eat..._ But being a toff might not be the most practical skill set. There was logic in his plan, even if it was a little annoying.

“All right,” Thomas agreed.

*

Thomas took the underground to the West End. He hoped it would be as posh in this new time as it had been in his old one, and it didn’t disappoint. He didn’t know if twenty-first century people put want ads in papers or magazines, but he hoped he might pass a shop window with a sign of some sort.

He walked around for hours marvelling. There was so much glass, on buildings and billboards that were taller than he could have imagined and lit with some new sort of gas or electricity, in all colours. There were hundreds of cars, too, oddly shaped ones, and so _many_ that Thomas wondered if every man in Britain in this century had his own car and his own chauffeur. Thomas took all this in, biting his lip and trying not to gape like an idiot.

After an hour, he realized that he might have to make his own luck. He started going into the restaurants and hotels he passed to ask if there might be any work. More often than not, people looked at him oddly. He supposed his clothes or the turns of phrase he used marked him as out of place. They told him no everywhere he went, and Thomas walked on, scowling at the pavement before him.

At last he found something that seemed promising. It was almost eleven when he passed a white stone building that would have been twenty or thirty years old in his own time. The restaurant had a cast iron sign on the façade and black iron railings that brought a pang of something like homesickness to Thomas’s chest, though the sign’s words brought the smile back to his face.

 _Help wanted_ , it read. Beneath that, in somewhat smaller print, was the phrase _Immediately._

*

They did need him immediately. The restaurant, the Finchley Arms, as it was called (Thomas had hardly noticed its name), was as posh as it looked. The manager was a middle-aged man with a weak, nervous, smile, as if he expected something to go wrong and was trying to stave it off. Thomas had the impression that he could make himself invaluable around here if he did get the job.

He was right. He asked the thin woman at the front who the manager was. She waved him to the older nervous man, who gave Thomas a quick glance.

“I saw your sign,” Thomas said, nodding at the manager. “I wondered if the position were still available?”

He tried to sound casual, because – from the little that he knew – that seemed _normal_ in 2011.

The manager’s smile flashed across his face again, and actually reached his eyes this time.

“ ‘Course it’s still available,” he said, “we only put it up this morning. In fact, I’ll tell you what happened– one of our team just came in last night and told me that his uncle had found him a proper job in his office, no notice or anything. Can you imagine?”

 _Another desperate type_ , Thomas thought, thinking of Craig and Sally and their cheap little flat. _Good_. He was in luck, but then, it was about time. This was the fourth place he’d gone into.

“Well, I’d be happy to help out, if I got the job,” Thomas said. He kept his face even, pleasant, in a manner that would have made Mr. Carson proud when Thomas first started working for him, though it would probably only make him suspicious now.

“You might yet,” the manager said. He extended his hand to Thomas. “Robert Andrews.”

Thomas shook his hand, and replied, “Thomas Barrow.”

“I’m so glad you’re interested,” Andrews said. “If you’ve got time now, I can ask you some questions in the back before we have to start the luncheon.”

This was something Thomas could do. He thought of the jobs he’d interviewed for, to become a footman at Downton Abbey, in 1909, and before that at Brommill Park, where he’d also worked as a hallboy since 1903, the year he turned thirteen. He clasped his hands together in excitement.

“Of course, Mr. Andrews,” he said.

“Excellent.” Andrews pointed to a door across the room. “We can talk as we walk, actually, seeing as it’s empty. Anyway, Thomas, tell me – do you like people? I mean, do you think of yourself as a _people person_?”


End file.
